Vol 3 Section 0228

¹⁸⁰                                                                        1898

August 18 Thursday – The Clemens family was in Bad Ischl or Hallstatt, Austria on this the second anniversary of Susy’s death.

Sam wrote an eleven-page elegy to Susy Clemens, “Broken Idols”

Two years ago she died. Two years! To you

The word is pleasant; it has not stung you

In your heart: you cannot know how long that seems to me,

Whose heart was once so filled with wealth

And now so empty stands.

This child was all the world to me,

And I to her. I lived in her, and she in me.

We were as one. And it was little like the common tie

That binds the mother and the child, but liker that

Which binds two lovers [H. Bush 263].

August 19 Friday – In Bad Ischl, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, thanking him for the news that George Barrow & Son had finally settled, the notice (not extant) of which arrived on Aug. 16 just as they were leaving on a “pleasure trip” to Bad Ischl. Sam was now fully out of debt.

       we have been sweltering two days in this hot town in a hot hotel which has no lights but candles, & puts them out in every hall & corridor all over the house at 11 p.m. It is all so primitive & depressing. We have dropped back into the dark ages. There isn’t a bath room in the house.

Moreover, Mrs. Clemens has had a cinder in her eyes for two days & a half, now, & it can’t be found nor seen—has bedded itself out of sight, & she must submit to a surgical operation. She came away to get a rest from housekeeping; but I am afraid it isn’t going to pay her. However, I am not meaning to intimate that this isn’t a good pleasure trip; for really it is. It is above average; for a cinder in your eye can improve any pleasure trip. They are always mournful orgies, & any little thing helps [MTHHR 357].

         Rogers wrote to Sam, letter not extant but referred to in Aug. 29 P.S. to Rogers.

Stephen C. Massett died in N.Y.C. He was best known as “Jeems Pipes of Pipesville,” and also the first to give a concert in San Francisco. Sam noted his death on Oct. 7 in a letter to James B. Pond.

August 20 Saturday – In Bad Ischl, Austria, Sam wrote to John Brisben Walker, owner of Cosmopolitan. Sam had received a check for $120 and a receipt to sign, but in the “confusion of packing” the family for a summer outing, it had been lost. They would return to Kaltenleutgeben in about ten days

[MTP].

Sam also replied to Franklin G. Whitmore (his not extant), directing him to send Bliss’ check for $4,173.73 on to H.H. Rogers to invest. He was in Ischl for a few days so couldn’t refer to a contract Whitmore had mentioned. Sam and Livy were willing to allow neighbors of the Farmington Ave. property to put a sewer pipe across their property; he mentioned the Warners, Mr. Cawles, Richard Burton, the Niles family and Dr. Porter. If Whitmore wanted “better authority” than Sam’s letter, he could use H.H. Rogers with his power of attorney. Sam signed off: “With a few temper-relieving bushels of profanity, & with love to you all” [MTP]. Note: K. Patrick Ober identifies Dr. Porter as Dr.William Porter Jr. who attended Susy when she was dying and signed her death certificate [316].

August 21 Sunday

August 22 Monday – Sam’s notebook shows the family went to Hallstatt (Halstadt), Austria:

SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.